


The time has come to find a new place

by Sunflowerhanamaru



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F, chikarikoweek2018, ennemies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunflowerhanamaru/pseuds/Sunflowerhanamaru
Summary: “Aqours failed. The schools are going to merge.”“Oh, really? I didn’t keep up with it at all.” Lies Riko. Her eyes sting with the lack of sleep and her index finger hurts just a little from all the time she refreshed the Uranohoshi high application’s page.OrUranohoshi high is closing and Riko has to deal with the arrival in her school of her arch nemesis, Takami Chika.





	1. Day one: School

**Author's Note:**

> Hiii, here I am with another multichaptered work for chikariko week! I hope you'll like it!

The chairs on both sides of Riko’s scrape loudly against the floor but Riko doesn’t react, too used to the noise her seniors bring with them everywhere they go.

“Did you see the news, Riko-chan?” Himiko starts opening her lunch-box while looking at Riko expectantly. Chiyu is already inhaling hers but her attention is still sharp on Riko, clearly waiting for her reaction. Riko tilts her head slightly, encouraging Himiko to keep going. “Aqours failed. The schools are going to merge.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t keep up with it at all.” Lies Riko. Her eyes sting with the lack of sleep and her index finger hurts just a little from all the time she refreshed the Uranohoshi high application’s page. She closes her book and grabs her own lunch-box, blushing slightly. She knows her seniors must know she’s lying at the glance they share over Riko’s head but they don’t comment further. Himiko drops her egg omelet in Riko’s lunch without a word.

“She must be sad,” Says Chiyu suddenly. “Chika-chan. She must be disappointed.”

Riko shrugs. She doesn’t want to think about Chika being sad; actually she doesn’t want to think about Chika at all. “It was long overdue,” She says in a clipped voice. “There really isn’t enough students for two schools in this city.”

“Fair enough.” Says Himiko. “And they still have the love live anyway.”

Riko’s jaws clench unintentionally. She tries to hide it the best she can but her friends still notice (Of course they do, it’s as if they spent the year learning how to read Riko more than training as school idols.). “Oh, Riko…” Himiko wraps an arm around Riko’s shoulder and Chiyu grabs her head and kisses her hair loudly. “Are you still bitter about our defeat against Aqours? It’s been two months already!”

Riko bites the inside of her cheek. She always feels guilty about being so resentful, especially since her friends seem to have put their deception aside already. “I just… Because you won’t be here next year, I really wanted us to win this year.”

“Don’t be sad, Riko-chan, we aren’t.”

“We were really good, Aqours were just better than us. Let’s concentrate on the end of our year and let’s cheer on them together.”

“Ah…” Riko eats sadly the chunk of omelet Himiko gave her. “I’m going to miss you, guys.”

Chiyu ruffles her hair. “Hopefully Chika-chan will give you her eggs as well.” 

Riko glares at her. “See if I give you my sausages after that.”

 

Riko and her friends end up going to the finals. They had been given show tickets like every other love live’s contestants and Riko had been very adamant about not going (never, ever). Chiyu and Himiko had begged and begged and begged and Riko had finally caved in when Chiyu had said (With fake tears in her eyes.) that it was the only thing she wanted as a graduation gift.

She had regretted agreeing during the whole train journey, and in the subway carrying them to the dome, and in the special queue leading them to their designated seats (close to the scene. Too close to the scene.). She had regretted it when the light had dropped and the first group had stepped on stage. She had regretted it more than ever when a clamor had started to grow in the audience, signaling Aqours’ turn to perform. She had been furious when Chiyu had pushed a orange light stick in her hand and had raised her arm for her, hand firmly clasped around her wrist. She had hated himself for enjoying water blue new world so much.

Aqours had won, of course they did, and as they were standing victorious on stage Chika’s and Riko’s eyes had met for a split second. Chika had smiled, probably on reflex, and Riko had smiled as well, definitely on reflex. “Don’t think you’re forgiven, Takami Chika.” Had thought Riko. “Don’t think we’ll be friends.” As if Chika would want to be her friend, anyway.

 

Riko doesn’t know if it’s a quality or a default but what’s certain is that she’s a stubborn girl. Her friends and her mother had tried to stop her from sulking during the break between her second and third year and, if she had finally stopped being sad about their defeat, she is still decided to avoid Takami Chika the best she can for the whole year to come.

Which is why, of course, the first person she bumps into during the first day of school ends up being Chika. The girl falls on her ass comically and Riko extends her hand to help her get up because for all she hates Chika she’s still human, thank you very much. A tiny part of Riko thinks it’s very Chika, of course, to fall on her ass and complain just to make Riko looks like some kind of terrible brute. A tinier part of Riko tells her she’s being ridiculous and dramatic; she pettily ignores it.

“Hi, I’m Takami Chika!” Riko almost wants to roll her eyes at Chika’s ridiculous humbleness: there isn’t a person in the whole country who wouldn’t recognize Chika but she still feel the need to introduce herself like she’s some kind of anonymous. Stupid. Chika’s eyes widen suddenly and Riko distractly notices they’re still holding hand. “Sakurauchi Riko, right?” Riko nods stiffly. “I’m so happy to finally meet you! I hope we’re going to be great friends.” Her eyes grow again when she spots someone behind Riko. She waves happily. She’s still holding Riko’s hand. “You-chan!” She screams, “Over here!” Riko would have covered her ears if her hands had been free.

“You found her!” Says You in place of a greeting. “Riko-chan, Chika was really looking forward to meeting you.”

“Ah, You-chan!” Chika seems terribly embarrassed now, her cheeks flushing and her free hand reaching for You’s ear, probably to pull it. “Don’t say weird thing like that, and don’t call her Riko-chan that carelessly!” You doesn’t answer, too busy watching their clasped hands. “I’m sorry…” Chika’s cheeks are bright red now. She bites on her bottom lip and looks at Riko pleadingly.

“It’s okay.” Answers Riko harshly. “I’ll get going now, Watanabe-san. Takami-san.” Chika deflects a little at that and it annoys Riko even more. What did she thought, exactly? That pulling a cute face and telling some lies would make Riko like her? 

Riko leaves quickly and she hears Chika furiously whispering in her back to her friend. ‘Why did you said that, dummy? You ruined it!’ Riko could laugh. Chika ruined everything long ago, all by herself.

 

Several texts are waiting for Riko when she gets home that evening. She opens Himiko’s first. ‘Riko-chan,’ it reads, ‘I hope your first day as a third-year was good. Chiyu and I are settling in well, but we already miss you so much! cheer up!’

Chiyu sent several texts as usual, all full of monkeys emojis, her favorite type. ‘Riko-chan!!!’  
‘Was your day good? Did you ate well???’  
‘How was meeting Chika-chan?!?’

Riko rolls her eyes and opens her discussion with Himiko again. ‘Himiko-chan, I’m happy to hear from you. My first day was nice but I miss your rolled eggs already! Good luck with handling Chiyu-chan all week long.’

Riko’s phone pings five minutes later when she’s in the middle of her homeworks. She snorts when she sees Chiyu’s answer, her affronted ‘hey!’ followed by exclamation points taking up all the screen. She sets her phone aside and decides to forget everything about that first day.

 

“We’re going to a café after school Sakurauchi-san, wanna come with?” Chika looks good in their school’s uniform, the dark red color of the vest creating a pretty contrast with her skin. Her hair is just a little longer that it was during her time in Aqours, the tip touching her collarbones when she bends over to talk to Riko. Her smile is blinding and beautiful and friendly and Riko almost wants to believe her intentions are good. She would get fooled like everyone else if she didn’t knew it’s only a facade. If he didn’t knew how fake Chika really is.

Riko doesn’t smile. She doesn’t look at Chika’s blinding smile or at the tip of her hair where it touches her collarbones or the collar of her vest. She doesn’t look at her neck, at the pretty contrast between dark red fabric and fair skin. “I have something scheduled already,” She says, Not Looking At Chika.

Chika bites at her lip. Riko doesn’t watch the movement, doesn’t watch how shiny and red her mouth looks. “Everyone is coming…” Chika says, and she looks so sad Riko almost wants to believe her intentions are good. She shakes her head.

“I have something scheduled already, Takami-san.” 

It’s cruel, really, how satisfying it is for Riko when Chika looks at her with big, dejected eyes. It feeds her need for revenge, her terrible petty side. See what it feels, Chika, when someone really doesn’t like you?


	2. Cooking

Riko usually enjoys the cooking classes at school. She’s not the best cook, far from it, but there’s something about making her hands work for her that relaxes her more than any other thing, apart from playing the piano. She compensates what she lacks in creativity with a great rigor and an acute attention to proportions and she’s used to get the best grades with her artistic dressages.   
She’s not the best cook but she’s great, she really is, and it’s the reason she’s a little shocked when the teacher takes her apart to tell her she’s going to be paired up today so she can learn from someone else.

“Is today’s dish very technical?” She asks, trying her best to hide her deception. She’d won the right to work alone only after proving her capacities to the teacher times and times again, and she doesn’t like to know that she has regressed.

“Not at all,” Answers the teacher, “This is precisely why I want you to work with someone else today. You’re a good cook Sakurauchi-san, but you need to learn to be more careless if you want to be great. Which is why you’re going to cook with Takami-san today.”

A couple of weeks have passed since the first day of school, and Riko had been careful to avoid her the best she could despite being in the same class. But fate is a thing, it seems, and it likes to laugh at Riko’s face.

Chika is already getting ready for the lesson, her orange apron carefully tied around her waist. She’s looking at Riko’s soft pink one with a puzzled expression like maybe the piece of cloth can give her the answer to some of the world’s biggest mysteries. She starts pushing it in Riko’s direction but Riko takes it from her before she has time to really grab it. The ingredients are already lined up on the counter in front of them, sugar and flour and eggs and butter neatly tucked in a corner next to an assortment of fillings and flavourings.

“So…” Says Chika, fidgeting with the corner of their printed recipe. “Do you know what kind of cookies you want to make, Sakurauchi-san?”

Riko considers the array of ingredients and bites the inside of her cheek. “I don’t intend to cook with you,” She says, her lips barely moving. Chika exhales a soft surprised puff of air. 

“So should we… Should we just bake our own batch of cookies? Despite what the teacher want us to do?” Riko shrugs, her fingers playing gently with the closed lid of the flour container. “Okay,” Says Chika eventually, and Riko resents her a little for not fighting harder.

They bake in silence, their table the only quiet corner in a room filled with laughter and chatter and sounds of eggs breaking on the floor. There’s a couple of times where Riko swears Chika is going to talk to her, and she avoids it each times by running to another table under fallacious pretexts. It’s terrible, really, the way Chika’s presence affects Riko ever so slightly; she can feel every look as clearly as if Chika was touching her skin and she realizes with shame that there’s still some longing for her under all that careful hate. Riko thinks maybe her weak, stupid heart wants nothing more than to stop hating Chika, to accepts the way her eyes caress her skin. Sometimes Chika looks at her and she still feels like she can bathe in the light that Chika is made of, and it hurts more than it should after so many time has passed. 

So Chika turns to watch Riko, maybe talk to her, and Riko flies away before she got the occasion, just in case.

“Hey, Sakurauchi-san,” Chika didn’t looked in her direction that time, maybe because she finally caught Riko’s defensive way of retreating. Riko almost drops her bowl. “Why don’t we make that a competition?”

Blood boils in Riko’s veins. Of course, Chika would try to make it a competition just so she can win against Riko again. All of that is about power fight, isn’t it? All about being the best.

Riko steadies her hands and shoots a glance in the cookies’ toppings direction. She’s a good cook. She’s a _great_ cook. There’s no way she can lose against Chika again, she reasons, nodding shortly without looking up from her batter. “Let’s ask the class to be the judge,” She mumbles finally.

“Oh… Do we really need judges?”

“It’s not a competition if there’s no judge,” Riko says. She’s irritated and sure it’s clearly showing but Chika smile instead of complaining, a smile that crawls right under Riko’s skin and makes her feel warm and bad at the same time, makes her feel like squirming and hiding far away. ‘I won’t lose against you.’ she wants to say. She doesn’t.

When the class gather around them to judge the cookies, Chika’s disappear so rapidly in the greedy hands of giggling girls that Riko doesn’t even have the time to see them. Riko looks at her own tray of biscuits, still half filled, and she fights hard the need to cry.

“Your cookies were good too, Sakurauchi-san,” The teacher says in a gentle voice. She takes one and bites on it. “The caramel flavour is very subtle and the chocolate topping is perfect, but…” She sighs. “This is the reason I asked you to bake with Takami-san. Everything about your cookies is perfect, and it lacks some messiness that would have made it less intimidating. You can’t expect young girls to like such a delicate flavor as salted caramel, you know. You should try working with Takami-san more seriously next time I pair you up.”

Riko feels her cheeks heating up and leaves her cookies on the counter, ashamed of herself. Being scolded by her teacher, even if kindly, isn’t something she’s just used too and she can’t stomach the idea of having been beaten by Chika again. Screw her and the warm feelings her looks provoke under Riko’s skin. Don’t she dare trying to make friends with Riko ever again.

 

In her locker, a carefully but messily wrapped bundle of cookies waits for her. The biscuits are sakura shaped and covered in a light pink glaze and they look eerily like the pattern on Riko’s apron. Everything about them scream Chika and Riko almost throw them in the nearest trash. Almost. The light taste of sakura fills her mouth when she bites in one and it tastes like her feelings for Chika once: something that _could have been_ but lacks a little something, something that felt real but was only dreams. She finishes it, shakes her head. The cookies aren’t even that good: clearly hers should have won.

 

The music room is sad and lonely without Himiko and Chiyu. Riko starts coming here again every day after her homeworks are finished, caresses the white and black keys, her thoughts wandering around. She plays every day, simple exercises to keep herself busy and avoid losing her touch but her heart isn’t in it anymore.   
She misses the time Sonata would come train in here, Chiyu’s enthusiast clappings during dance trainings and Himiko’s sweet voice bouncing on the walls. She misses their instruments meddling together, piano and violin and cello blending perfectly under their fingers. She misses the way playing the piano made her feel back then, how creating seemed so easy. She misses her old life.  
Her fingers start dancing on the keys without even noticing but she halts abruptly when the door opens softly.

“Hello?” Chika raises her eyebrows so high they disappear behind her fringe. “Oh,” She shrinks up when she sees Riko sitting on the piano’s bench. “I heard you… I didn’t knew it… Sorry for interrupting.”

“It’s okay,” Answers Riko, even if it isn’t. “I’m leaving anyway.” She doesn’t want to but it’s not like she has the choice. She shouldn't be surprised that Chika manages to take away the last thing making her happy. She grabs her bag and stands.

“Wait!” Chika looks worried again. “That song… I’ve never heard it before. Is it a Sonata song?”

Riko shrugs. “Yeah.” She glances at the notebook in front of her, opened on the lyrics of the song. Chika follows her line of sight and walks to the piano. She questions Riko with a look. Riko shrugs again.

“I’ve never heard it before.” Chika repeats. She seems genuinely incredulous about it, like the fact that she could have missed a Sonata song is unbelievable and it annoys Riko more than she’d like.

“Not like you’ve heard a lot of our songs anyway.”

“What?” Chika looks like Riko just punched her in the chest. “Rik… Sakurauchi-san, of course I did. I’ve listened to all of your songs, I…” She looks small and sad and for the first time it doesn’t make Riko feel that good. “Could you play that song one more time?” 

And because Chika looks so sad and small and because, for the first time, seeing her like that doesn’t feel so good, Riko lowers her hands to the piano’s keys again and she begins to play.

 

Riko comes home to a text from Chiyu. ‘Are you friend with Chika already?????’ She throws herself on the bed with a long whine, her face buried in the pillow and her head full of memories of playing the piano for Chika. One year ago that thought had made Riko’s heart flutter so hard she sometimes wasn’t able to find sleep before the early hours of the morning. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly and tries not to think about the day her ridiculous little girl’s dream shattered into thousand of pieces.


	3. Hands

_“Go on, Riko-chan, go greet them!” Riko is already wearing her performance costume, her hair carefully tied back in a low ponytail. She smooths down the silky material of her skirt nervously twice._

_“Do you really think I should?” Himiko takes her by the arm and Chiyu by the shoulder, both girls pushing her gently to the door of the changing room._

_“Do it.” Encourages Himiko gently._

_“Do it!” Confirms Chiyu with a last tug._

_“You just want me to leave so you can make out in the changing room.” Riko accuses._

_“Yeah exactly. Now go!”_

_So Riko leaves the changing room, her heart beating too fast. She knows her hands are starting to sweat and she’s afraid she will be a mess when they walk on stage later for the winner’s announcement._  
Riko tries to remember the advices of her band members: trying to be natural. Breathing deeply and evenly. Knocking at the door of Aqours’ changing room, introducing herself. Hopefully getting Takami Chika’s number. For musical reasons. No big deal.  
She halts in front of the door, her heart in her throat, and freezes when she hears her own name. 

_“Ah, Mari-chan!” Says Chika in answer, loud and clear. “Stop with that. You know I don’t really like her.”_

_Riko feels a cold dark wave wash over her heart. It’s not like she entertained something, not really. It was all a ridiculous, little girl’s crush anyway but it still hurts more than she could admit. She hides in the restroom until the three groups are called for the announcement._

_Even the defeat doesn’t sting as much as Chika’s words._

 

She’s a little ashamed of it but Riko kind of has a thing for hands. It’s probably linked to her love to piano playing (And not at all because she’s a huge pervert, thank you very much Chiyu!) and not at all a big deal, of course. It’s just that she tends to notice when people have nice looking hands, and hands that look like they’d feel good holding Riko’s, and strong hands that could easily pin her against a wall (Again, not a pervert!).

It had been the thing that had drawn her to Chika in the first place actually: Chiyu, Himiko and her were searching for pictures of their love live’s opponents and Riko had somehow zoomed in on Chika’s hand, extended in front of her in the picture presentation of Aqours. Her two friends had been exchanging opinions about the group’s members attractiveness and Riko had only snapped out of her stupor after being called out several times. 

“See something you like?” Had asked Himiko with a knowing smile. Riko had blushed a little.

“The leader has pretty hands, is all,” She had said, and Chiyu had starting hooting immediately at her confession.

“The leader…” She had scrolled down the screen to find the names of the members. “Takami Chika.” She had raised an eyebrow slowly. “Takami-chan. Chika-chan, maybe?”

Riko had closed the tab hurriedly, cheeks reddening, and her friends had kindly dropped the subject. Later that day, after coming home from school, she had typed “Takami Chika” in an incognito window and had felt the blush creeps on her cheeks at the sight of Chika, her kind smile, her energetic dancing and her elegant hands. She had watched every video available on the internet until his mother had barged in her room and had forced her to go to bed. She hadn’t slept much that night.

Said hands are on the table next to Riko right now and she ends up ignoring the mathematic lesson in favor of staring at them instead. Her thumbnail is bitten (A shame, in Riko’s opinion.) and her joints are slightly too large, making her hands look almost masculine if not for the elegant almond-shape of her fingernails. Her knuckles are covered in barely noticeable freckles and her skin looks tantalizingly soft. Riko can see the bluish veins under the fair skin of the back of her hand and it takes her all her willpower not to reach for it, to trace them with the pad of her fingers. She curls her own hand in a tight fist, short nails biting at the skin of her palm, and she realizes too late that Chika is looking her, clearly intrigued. 

“You shouldn’t clench your fist like that,” She whispers, soft enough that the teacher can’t catch it. “You’re going to hurt yourself, and we don’t want that to happen to your precious pianist’s fingers.” It could be ironic; it sounds almost ironic but Chika’s eyes are soft and kind and Riko doesn’t know anymore if she wants Chika to be ironic or sincere, if she wants to hate Chika or she wants to love her.

Riko’s hand clenches again on reflex where it’s pressed against her cheek and Chika reaches for it, looking transfigured. She touches Riko’s knuckles, softly, and she looks like she’s watching something precious and fragile unfold under her eyes when Riko’s hand relaxes under her touch. She looks up at Riko’s face and takes her hand away quickly, her eyes drifting away.

“Sorry, just… Don’t clench them.”

“Thank you,” Says Riko, clenching her hand again because she’s stupid and a mess of a human being.

 

When Riko opens the door of the music room that evening she finds Chika already curled up in her usual corner, notebook open and pen moving frantically over the paper. Riko greets her with a nod that Chika reciprocates quickly.

When Riko begins to play, her eyes trained on the keys and the movement of her fingers, she can’t help but imagine Chika’s alongside hers, strong hands delicate while they hit the notes, creating a beautiful music just for them to share. 

Riko hits a wrong key and immediately snaps out of her daydreaming. Chika didn’t even noticed the false note.


	4. Wishes

The thing with Chika is that it’s impossible to make abstraction of her: she has that kind of presence that simply fills a room entirely, even if she’s napping in her arm or struggling on a grammar exercise. Maybe part of the reason Riko just can’t seem to forget she’s there is because fate and the teacher made them sit next to each other in class; maybe it’s because Riko tries so hard to not notice Chika just she just ends noticing every little thing she does.

Chika also has that lack of class, of _sophistication_ that sometimes makes Riko wants to shake her. She wants to take her apart to explain to her that a school idol (A former one but still.) just shouldn’t yawn that big without covering her mouth or _sit with her legs spread when she’s wearing a skirt, god_. What doesn’t help is the fact that their classmates don’t see a problem in Chika’s bigger than life presence and cavalier attitudes. 

“I think it’s cute,” had said one of them when Riko had tried to investigate. “It’s part of her charms.”

“What charms?” Had bitterly asked Riko. She had been happy no one had been able to call her out for being such a big hypocrite.

“Twelve past noon,” Says Chika suddenly in Riko’s direction, stretching her arms above her head. A quick glance informs Riko that she’s stretching her legs too. A nasty cracks comes from one of her knee. “It’s twelve past noon, time to make a wish.”

Riko almost smile: double hour wishes were something Himiko and Chiyu loved passionately and they always religiously stopped everything in favor of spying the clock when they were approaching one. Himiko would close her eyes a couple of minutes before while Chiyu would watch her watch sharply, and she would inform both of her friends it was time to make their wishes immediately when the seconds hand would pass the twelve. Riko had stopped doing wishes after the qualifications; they had lost the love live and she had failed in getting Chika’s friendship and it was a very good proof, in her opinion, that wishes were mere little girls’ dreams.

“I wish you would leave me alone,” Finally answers Riko when Chika’s eyes on her become unbearable. Chika puts her cheek on her closed fist but doesn’t stop looking at her.

“But you know wishes never come true if you say them out loud, don’t you Sakurauchi-san?” Her eyes are glinting and she looks pretty and she’s there, filling the room as usual and making it hard to breathe for Riko with just a look. “Someone more foolish than me would maybe imagine it means what you wish for is actually the opposite you know.”

Riko wishes she could control her blush suddenly. “What did you wish for?”

Chika sends her a weird half-smile, a corner of her mouth curling lazily while she considers Riko. “I’m not telling you,” She says slowly. “Because I really, really want mine to come true.”

And just like that she bounces out of her chair, lunch box in hand, and goes to find You and a couple of other giggling girls. Riko recognizes one of them as the girl who had so much to say about Chika’s overflowing charms and something weirdly dark twists in her chest. Oh.

 

Chika is sitting on the piano bench when Riko enters the music room that evening. She’s caressing the keys softly, Riko’s lyrics notebook unopened in front of her. She looks up when Riko enters and she looks small again, like she just got caught doing something bad. Riko smiles despite her best judgement. 

“I don’t know how to play any instrument.” Chika says softly. “I wish I could though. I always thought you… I always thought pianists look majestics when they’re playing.”

“You’re too old to learn,” Blurts Riko without thinking. The pained look she receives in answer makes her heart tighten painfully. “Maybe not for the basics…”

“Would you teach me?” And here comes the kicked puppy expression again. Riko almost caves in.

“No,” She answers coldly. “But you can stay and listen if you really want to, Takami-chan.” All Chika wants, clearly, is to be liked by Riko because Riko is the only person who doesn’t like her. If Riko acts like she does, she figures Chika will give up soon enough, will stop bothering her and breaking her already shattered heart.


	5. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No chapter yesterday cause I was in Dia duty (aka my sister was visiting). I'm doing my best to finish both chapters for today! Thank you for sticking with me on that journey!

Sometimes Chika’s friends come to eat at their table instead of Chika leaving to another one and Riko has to accept the fact that she actually, genuinely likes most of them. You drops her rolled omelet in Riko’s lunch box without looking at her, pushing the tomatoes in her own with the tip of her chopsticks.

“What did you answer on that school counselling questionnaire?” She asks, not looking up. Ruby looks around with a panicked expression.

“What questionnaire? Did we had something to fill out?”

“Don’t worry Ruby-chan, it’s a third-year thing,” Answers Hanamaru with a pat on her friend’s head.

“Of course it is!” Adds Yoshiko like she wasn’t looking slightly panicked before Hanamaru’s answer. Riko hides behind her hand to laugh.

“I still haven’t filled out mine,” Says Chika, bringing the discussion back to the current subject. “I’m still unsure about what I want, plus isn’t it too early to ask that kind of thing?”

“But isn’t that the goal?” Says Riko, eating the omelet. “To write out our stupidest dreams so they can help us find out something reasonable early enough to make some better academic plans?”

“Do you mean you have a stupid dream Riko-chan?” Riko hits You’s shoulder lightly. You never stopped calling her by her name, even after several warnings from both Riko and Chika, and for some reason the way Chika always scowls when hearing it makes Riko a little (just a little) happy. “Do tell us? Is it being a wife?”

Riko feels herself blushing. “I mean… That’s not what I was thinking about but…”

“Really?” You is leaning in Riko’s direction now, her eyes eager and shining. “And do you have a special someone in mind to realize that dream with already?”

“You-chan!” Screams Chika. She’s as red as Riko probably is and her expression is a mix of anger and embarrassment. “Stop with those invasive questions. Really, you don’t know when to stop joking, don’t you?”

“It’s okay, I don’t care,” Says Riko, more to contradict Chika than anything else.

“But I do!” Chika says, still bright red. “I do care, don’t you see?” She leaves the table and the silence is only broken by a small sniffing sound coming from Ruby. Riko ushers to console her with everyone else but her brain keeps replaying Chika’s reaction, her broken, sad expression. ‘I do care’ She had said and Riko really, really wants to believe she had been talking about something else than just You joking.

 

Chika doesn’t give up on their music room rendez-vous, even after the screaming contest that happened at lunch (When did it became a rendez-vous in Riko’s mind? When did Chika’s presence stopped being a bother? She doesn’t know and it worries her sick because she’s not sure she can take another disappointment.). She looks a little embarrassed but she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask Riko to forgive her for screaming and Riko is honestly a little relieved because she doesn’t know what she could have answered to that.   
They never talk to each other in the music room anyway but for a few words when Riko decides it’s time to leave and honestly even that is already almost too much for Riko’s poor heart.   
They never talk to each other, except for those few rare words, which is why hearing Chika speak up when Riko finishes playing her track makes her heart jump that much. Talking in class is a thing; talking there, in the quiet of the music room when it’s only the two of them is something else entirely.

“Compared with Aqours, Sonata always had a much more mature image, right?”

Chika’s eyes are expectant, hopeful maybe, and something in Riko’s heart softens. “You’ve been fooled,” She answers, not looking at her. “Chiyu is the least mature person I know.”

“She’s the short-haired one, yeah?” Riko nods. “Mari and Hanamaru were always going on and on about how handsome she is. I’d say she fooled everyone successfully. What about Himiko?”

“Himiko is more mature than Chiyu but only because it’s impossible to be _less_ mature than her. They used to draw me up the wall with their shenanigans.” Riko laughs a little sadly.

“You miss them,” Chika says softly and this time Riko looks at her. Chika’s head is cocked on one side and she looks weirdly intense about it, like she can feel Riko’s sadness in her own body.

“I do,” Answers Riko, “I miss them everyday.” Chika only nods, the silence stretching between them.

“The song you just played… It was the one I heard you play the first day, right?” Riko nods. “Did you ever performed it with them? Did you record it?”

“We never played it together,” Riko bites the inside of her cheek, her eyes fleeting to the unopened notebook she left on the piano. Chiyu’s calligraphy is adorning its cover and three little monkeys arboring Riko’s, Himiko’s and Chiyu’s hairstyles are drawn at the bottom of the page. She caresses the soft paper of it and avoids Chika’s eyes. “We never had to, in the end.” Another silence. “They don’t even know I wrote that song.”

“They don’t…” Chika looks as sad as lost. “Why didn’t you…”

“I felt like I had failed them, I don’t know…” Riko shrugs. “The song didn’t had any purpose after all that story. It was just… The symbol of my failed dream, you know?” Chika looks like she knows and for a second it makes Riko angry (Aqours did won the love live after all.) but Riko suddenly remembers how determinate Chika had been to save her school and. Maybe she does know, after all.

“Sing it for me?”

Riko shakes her head. “I can’t, it’s a duet. Wouldn’t make any sense to sing it by myself.”

“Oh,” Says Chika, “Okay.” They don’t say anything else of the whole hour.


	6. First

“That song…” Says Chika one evening after Riko plays the duet’s music again. “It’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“It’s kind of bittersweet?” Answers Riko with a shrug. “It’s my favorite song I’ve ever composed but it also remind me of the defeat, so…”

“I know what you should do!” Says Chika happily, jumping on her feet. She walks to the piano and leans on it to watch Riko’s notebook upside down with a small, enthusiast smile. Riko stops breathing for a moment then chastises herself for letting Chika takes her breath away so easily. Chika is reading the lyrics the best she can, eyes crossed and finger following the lines. She smells faintly of agrums, probably because of all the tangerines she’s always eating, and Riko realizes suddenly that the whole room have been smelling of tangerines as well lately, even when Chika’s not in it. It’s a little disconcerting how the perfume have become familiar by now, when Riko had wrinkled her nose at it for so long when she first started to hate Chika.

She wonders if the room smells of her faint cherry blossom fragrance also, if Chika can pick up from the crowded classroom or the dusty music room. She hopes she does, and she resents herself for it. Being friendly with Chika is one thing; getting her hopes up again is another one entirely, one she doesn’t want to entertain the slightest. Even if Chika is charming and sometimes says things that makes Riko almost believe… But nope. No, absolutely not.

Riko shakes her head and the dangerous idea out of it, only to find Chika’s face closer to hers’ and looking both curious and amused.

“So?” She asks, and Riko realizes she didn’t listen any word that came out of Chika’s (pretty) mouth.

“Yeah, I agree,” Riko says. 

She regrets it the second she sees how excited Chika looks. If Chika was a dog, Riko is positive her tail would be wiggling like crazy. “Are you serious?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Amazing! So I can read the lyrics, right? Should we, like, make a first try just like that to see how it sounds?”

Riko chokes on nothing at all. “Excuse me?” Chika cocks her head on a side and furrows her brows slightly.

“I need to read the lyrics,” She says gently like she’s lecturing a very small kid. “If we record the song together. Or do you want to write new lyrics for our version?”

“Record the song?” Says Riko, still confused. Chika smiles, soft and small.

“You weren’t listening to me, eh? It’s okay, I got excited too quickly.” Chika rubs the back of her head, clearly looking self-confused. “Everyone always says I should be more patient, sorry.”

Riko wants to say something kind, wants to say it’s okay and that they can record the song, say she likes how Chika is always so passionate and especially when she is passionate about Riko, wants to say Chika should never apologize for being herself because Riko had been smitten with her the second she had saw that pic of her. She wants to say she had tried hating on Chika so hard and had failed failed failed because Chika is just to loveable not to be loved, and as she’s considering saying it she realizes how true it is and it hits her like a wall of bricks.

“I heard you,” She says instead. “That one time at the competition.” Chika blanches and her grip on the notebook tightens.

“Is that…” She licks her lips and looks down at her hands. “Yeah, of course. It is the reason you didn’t wanted anything to do with me, right?” Riko shrugs awkwardly. “I should have understood. I must have disgusted you so much.”

“Disgusted is a strong word…”

Chika laughs a little sadly. “It wasn’t completely true at the time, if you need something to cheer you up. I’m sorry you had to hear that though.”

“It wasn’t?” Riko is glad she’s still sitting on the piano bench because her knees feel so weak she would probably be unable to stand up in her state of confusion. “You didn’t hated me?”

Chika looks up at that, clearly confused. “What? What did you hear exactly?”

“You said you didn’t liked me!” Accuses Riko. Her hands are shaking on her thighs and she has to fight the need to get up and leave the best she can. She’s angry again without any warning, she’s angry and sad because it’s unfair, all of that is unfair and she deserved so much better. “You even said you really didn’t like me, with emphasis! What did I ever do to you to deserve that, uh?”

“I lied!” Screams Chika suddenly, and she recoils when she realizes what she just said. “Just… Because I talked about you so much the girls wouldn’t stop teasing me, saying I liked you. It was just… I wanted them to stop annoying me about it. I tried… I searched for you after that but you weren’t anywhere... “ She sounds a little broken, like she’s trying her best not to scream again, or crying, or both. “I wanted to be your friend.” She says and Riko feels a tear roll on her own cheek. “Riko-chan, can I be your friend?”

Riko wipes the tears away angrily. “Let’s be friends, Chika-chan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (In case it's not evident, it's their first time calling each other by their names!)


	7. Ocean

Chika isn’t in the music room when Riko enters that evening and even if she did expected it to happen sooner or later it does break her heart a little. She sits at the bench, carefully avoiding to watch the empty spot where Chika usually sits. The fact that it would happen the day following Riko finally calling Chika by her name feels like a low-blow, too: a definitive proof that Chika was just in a quest to be liked by the only person in the school who didn’t liked her. And it’s stupid, it’s really stupid, but at some point (Riko doesn’t know when. When was it?) she had started thinking maybe Chika was sincere in her attempt to tame Riko. They had decided to become friends just the day before and already Chika considered her mission over.   
She’s not even angry at Chika, not really. She’s just very angry at herself, at her credulity. At her soft spot for a girl who never even shown any sign of liking her back. Riko remembers how annoyed she was when Chika had first started showing up in the music room, how she’d wish she would leave already and let her be alone with her thoughts. The music room feels empty now and Riko is angry at herself for getting so used to Chika’s presence, to the point her absence feels a tangible, sensible thing pressing on her chest.

She launches herself in the most angry sounding piece she can think of and stops short when Chika appears in the room. She seems a little shocked and scared and Riko realizes she must look intense and angry herself, adrenaline pumping hard in her veins. And Chika...

Chika looks fine, she looks fine but she looks un-Chika-like at the same time and Riko knows instantly something is wrong. “Are you alright?” She asks, and Chika's too energetic smile is an answer in itself.

“I'm not,” Chika says with still that weird, airy smile on her face. “I miss Kanan and Dia and Mari and I miss singing and dancing and training and I miss Aqours. I miss my life.” Riko sees the first tear rolling down her cheek slow slow slow like it's not very sure where it's supposed to go, like Chika's so unused to crying she doesn't remember how to do it properly. “I miss my school. Riko-chan, I miss my life.”

And it hurts a little because the life Chika misses is a life Riko isn't a part of but she gets it, she gets it, she thinks about Chiyu and Himiko and she gets it. “I know what you need,” She says, and she really hope she does. “Come with me.”

There are sorrows that can be cured with playing sad or angry piano themes and there are sorrows you have to cry out to get rid of, and then there are the deep ones, those you can’t make disappear all by yourself.  
Riko knows about all of them, and she knows where to go when she needs a loyal friend to listen to her.

“Riko-chan, the waves are really big today. We shouldn’t go to the beach.”

“It’s because they’re very big that we should go now. Do you trust me?” Her boldness make Riko blush slightly but she still keeps eye contact with Chika the way she wasn’t able to for so long. Chika looks a little lost but trusting and Riko realizes, too late, that Chika had trusted her since the very beginning. She takes Riko’s hand with an embarrassed expression and tugs her in the beach’s direction.

“Now what?” She asks. Her hair is flying wildly and her cheeks are reddening with the cold and she looks gorgeous.

“Do you hear her? The sea is angry and sad too.” Chika chokes on a laugh.

“Is she?”

“Do you hear her scream Chika-chan?” Chika’s fingers tighten around Riko’s. She nods and laughs again, a weak and embarrassed sound. “You should scream too.”

“What?” Chika laughs. “What should I scream?”

“Whatever, just…” Riko opens her mouth, wide, and screams the louder she can, startling Chika in the process. 

She just watches Riko for a moment, eyes and mouth hanging open in shock. Then she turns towards the waves, crushes Riko’s hand in hers’ and screams too, a words vomit of rage and sadness and unfairness. She’s panting when she stops eventually and she still looks sad but more peaceful.

“I like running better usually,” Explains Riko, “But those shoes…” She doesn’t have the time to finish her sentence: Chika is already running in a wonky line, the sea licking at her shoes every now and then. Riko starts running too, to catch Chika at first but soon for the sensation of freedom only. The wind is roaring around her and the sand under her shoes makes running kinda difficult but, unlike the usual few time she ran on the beach, she has a goal now, a beautiful goal running ahead of her. She laughs when Chika throws her head back and screams again, the words blown away by the wind.

Chika collapses finally, gently, and Riko throws herself on the sand next to her.

“You could have sprained your ankles,” Says Riko softly. She licks her lips, tastes the salt on them and blushes lightly under Chika’s gaze.

“I’m going to scream one last thing to the sea,” She says, turning to watch the sky above. “You’ll listen to me as well, won’t you?”

“Of course, I will.” Chika’s hand find Riko’s again.

“Okay,” Chika says, eyes closed. “Okay, I can do this. Okay.” She takes a deep breath, exhales slowly by the nose. And she screams: “I’m in love with Sakurauchi Riko!”

Riko feels her heart skips a beat. She takes in the atmosphere, the smell of salt and sea with, faint underneath, the smell of tangerine that always stick to Chika’s skin. She takes in the way her hair flies around, wild and beautiful, and the blush on her cheeks and her parted lips. There’s sand sticking to her temple, her jaw, her neck (The same pretty neck she remembers staring at in secret.), her school jacket (Whose dark red compliment so well the fair shade of her skin.). She looks at Chika, the girl she liked then hated then learned to love. The girl who liked her and fought for her and just admitted she’s in love with her.

“Say something, please,” Chika begs, her eyes still closed.

Riko reaches out and wipes the sand on Chika’s cheek softly. “The duet,” She says, voice gentle. Chika’s eyes fly open. “It’s a love song. I want to record it with you. I’m sorry.” She bends over slowly, brings their forehead together. “I’m in love with you too.” 

Chika’s arms circle Riko’s neck but she doesn’t dare apply any pressure. When they kiss, finally, Chika tastes like tangerine and like salt; she tastes like everything Riko thought she would and somehow even better.

“Will you record the song with me?” She asks, anxious still.

“Of course, I will,” Chika laughs. “If you kiss me again first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this is the end of that year's ckrk week's fic! I really hope you liked it! Don't hesitate to leave a comment, or come talk to me on [my blog!](https://sunflowerhanamaru.tumblr.com/)


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